More secrets revealed on Dan Thomson's latest planing hull design…

I won’t lie. Having the great Miki Dora accuse me of self aggrandisement, name dropping and providing minimal info on the board (Cymatic) was a kick in the nuts with a steel-capped boot.

He even vomited over the one positive comment my Bribie mate had given me in 40 years ( ollowed by calling me a useless cunt for not keeping on top of the regrowth from the Camphor laurels he chainsawed for me in December).

The real kicker, though, was being viciously impugned for not supporting my local surfboard shapers/builders. 

Granted this board was made in Thailand, but seeing as the design, refinement and testing has all happened within a stone’s throw of my crib and I’ve known the bloke responsible for > 20 years, it was a bitter pill to swallow and, I think, quite unfair criticism.

Granted this board was made in Thailand, but seeing as the design, refinement and testing has all happened within a stone’s throw of my crib and I’ve known the bloke responsible for > 20 years, it was a bitter pill to swallow and, I think, quite unfair criticism.

Given the first person account is the only honest way forwards and the Indian will always trump the arrow, a more techno/historical description follows, including an update with Powerdrive fins from Mark Thomson, designed and built in Lennox Head. 

The theoretical roots of the modern Planing Hull design lie in the work done by the redoubtable Professor Lindsay Lord of MIT, whose book Naval Architecture of Planing Hulls laid out some of the hydrodynamic properties of same. Glibly summarised, his chief finding was that short, rectangular hulls with wide sterns were the most efficient planing devices.

Lord’s planing hull Bible was discovered by prototypical Californian Bob Simmons, an architect of the surfing lifestyle and famous for leaving a trail of oranges along the southern Californian coast. It was Simmons who declared the surfboard to be a planing hull and began the process of incorporating Lord’s methodologies and results into the surfboard. 

Dan Thomson was dragged into the Simmons orbit via Richard Kenvin in the process of making the great unfinished cinematic epic about Simmons titled Hydrodynamica. Dan took the straight-railed Lis fish into the realm of the modern high-performance shortboard via a process too lengthy to describe here.

Its performance capabilities have been described: super fast off-the-mark planing speed and incredible manoeuvrability. Its flaws: steering control in turns and obligate short-arc surfing. Redress via fin experimentation was attempted.

Its performance capabilities have been described: super fast off-the-mark planing speed and incredible manoeuvrability. Its flaws: steering control in turns and obligate short-arc surfing. Redress via fin experimentation was attempted.

Mark, or Carcass as he is colloquially known, had seen the Cymatic in action and assured me the power drive fin, a kind of hockey stick template fin, would fix the steering problem. Days later, in the North Wall carpark a black Beamer pulled up beside me and Carcass handed me a package of fins out the window.

“Try these,” he said, “and let me know how they go.”

Today, in perfect zippering head-high Point surf they were tested. The board still paddled like a wet sock. Lady Luck and a little cunning strategy* in a thick crowd saw a set wave nabbed. The lack of fin base felt a little spongey through the opening high-line drives, to deter would be assassins from intruding.

The board whipped through a top-turn cutback and came straight back off the whitewater knuckle with control. More set waves followed. Steering was improved. A sizzling little session, for sure. A real little stoke-out. I did not fall.

Is this infomercial? I don’t know if these fins are for sale. Talking to others who had ridden confirmed my experience of improved control at speed. If you are on the modern planing hull trip you could try Googling it. 

On the way up the path, in the shade of a cottonwood canopy, I chatted to a new German friend, in booties and helmet, also on a Cymatic. He said he was a surf refugee. I felt compassion, brotherhood, but still faintly disgusted by the protective gear and the white puffy feet.

What’s so wrong with shedding a little blood to do what you love? 

*The frog in the Hole strategy. The frog waits in the hole, just too deep and off the take-off. Ignored, asleep: the frog launches out of the hole to nab the fly.